A cross-connect device is a switch that receives plurality of conductors and operates to connect pairs of said conductors in order to configure desired physical paths throughout the said plurality of conductors. Said conductors may be fiber optic wires, electrical wires or coax wires. The most common cross-connect device is the ordinary Distribution Frame also known as patch panel, ODF, FDF and MDF, wherein plurality of conductors are terminated by connectors mounted on a panel where cross connections between pairs are performed manually by patch conductors.
There have been attempts to develop cross connect optical devices based on beam deflection in free space fabrics which naturally allow crossing of light beams However, those free space devices are inadequate in terms of: cost, insertion loss, passiveness, non-blocking (as they can only connect between members of input group to output group) and high port count. Due to their inherent drawbacks those devices are not suitable for network physical configuration management.
Another approach attempted is by utilizing robotic mechanism to create connections. In this approach a robotic mechanism is adapted to perform by imitating the manual operation of an ordinary patch panel. However, due to the impossibility to control and predict the topology of the crossing patches and to avoid the “patches spaghetti effect” which eventually sticks any known robotic mechanism, all such straight forward attempts had failed.
Other approaches based on controlled topologies such as crossbar topology have been implemented as described in PCT international patent publication number WO/2002/043432A1 to Arol et al. and PCT international patent publication numbers WO/2006/054279A1 and WO/2006/054300A2 to Avrahami et al. which are incorporated hereto by reference, in their entirety. It should be stated that controlled topologies such as crossbar topology suffer from ineffective utilization of operating space since ports are arranged in orthogonal linear lines, thus occupying large operating areas resulting in prohibitive size and cost for high port count devices. For example, a 200 by 200 switch may require a square operating area of 2 m by 2 m (at 10 mm connector size) where for comparison a square patch panel arrangement of same connectors (400 connectors, 10 mm each) may require an operating area of only 0.2 m by 0.2 m ( 1/100 area factor).
Still remains a need in the field of cable interconnection, for a method, device, assembly and system for facilitating controlled, physical cable cross connections, which may operate in the environment of complex crossed over cable topologies, while allowing for remote operation, size scale-up capabilities and the utilization of various effective connection and disconnection techniques.